NewsWire: 12/09/2020
- Workplace romances are becoming less common, with many Millennials viewing it as more trouble than it’s worth. Young people would rather find dates online than take a chance with a colleague, which is now loaded with professional ramifications they’d rather avoid. (The Wall Street Journal)
- NH: If you randomly asked couples from my generation how they met, it wouldn’t be long before you found someone who met their spouse at work. But among young people, this is increasingly rare. From 1995 to 2017, the share of heterosexual couples who met “through or as co-workers” fell from 19% to 11%.
- If anything, the office has become a place to studiously avoid finding love. In this WSJ piece, the Millennials interviewed express worries that a workplace relationship could hurt their professional reputation, run afoul of anti-fraternization policies, or just plain make things awkward.
- The #MeToo movement has also pushed many white-collar companies to create more formal policies surrounding workplace relationships. Those who do start dating a co-worker may have to sign a “love contract” (yuck!) or disclose their relationship to the rest of their staff. At the investment firm BlackRock, employees need to go even further and tell anyone employed by the firm’s business partners. This keeps the HR department happy, even if it hardly enhances passion.
- So why risk it? The share of couples meeting at work has been declining at the same time that the share of couples meeting online has been steadily going up. The pandemic has only pushed Millennials further away from the office and toward apps and dating sites. (See “Finding Love During Covid-19” and “Love at First Site.”) No professional minefields there.
- To be sure, office romances will always be with us. It’s inevitable for relationships to develop whenever you have people spending time together in close proximity. But you can bet that when Millennials find themselves crushing on a co-worker, their first reaction is “oh no” rather than “oh yes.”
- Older generations are likely to regard this caution with decidedly mixed feelings. Sure, it's admirable that left-brained Millennials can behave so "sensibly," following the rules and taking no chances. But occasionally they'd like to see young people defy authority, take big risks, and trust their feelings just to see what happens. Sure, doing something stupid usually doesn't end well--but it's almost always a character-building experience.
- "All you need is love" was once a generational clarion call for young Boomers. But to many young Millennials, their parents must have been experiencing some sort of mass delusion.
